Bellevue business community talks augmented, virtual reality at BDA breakfast

Published 12:00 pm Tuesday, December 12, 2017

If there was a city in the Pacific Northwest that was positioned to become a hot spot for augmented reality and virtual reality, Bellevue is it.

At least that’s what the city’s Economic Development Manager Jesse R. Canedo indicated at the Bellevue Downtown Association’s monthly breakfast Tuesday. This month, the breakfast was held at W Bellevue.

Michael Nassirian, the founder and CEO of ARVR Academy, which is a network for education mentorship and professional development for virtual and augmented reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence and data science also spoke at the breakfast.

Washington state already holds one-fifth of the gaming industry’s global revenue of $21.4 billion, Canedo reported.

And augmented reality is expected to be a $90 billion industry by 2020.

With augmented reality and virtual reality on the horizon for the next big technology breakthrough, it’s only a matter of time before the sector is adopted on a widespread level.

Already companies such as VRstudios Inc., a Bellevue startup, are making waves. VRstudios recently announced it will roll out its own 2,400-square-foot free-roam multi-player systems to the United States, Canada and Latin America in early 2018.

But augmented and virtual reality isn’t just about transporting oneself into the middle of a Zombie war. Canedo said it can be used for architectural designs, as a way to reduce transportation to major sporting events by offering the game in a virtual sense or as way to provide a tour of a room, building or city.

To learn more about augmented and virtual reality, visit ARVR Academy’s website at www.arvracademy.io.